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Composting Toilets Not Allowed In Marina.


Alan de Enfield

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10 hours ago, NB Caelmiri said:

I boat all over! Actually, to be fair I don't notice elsans that much because I've never had a cassette toilet so never had to deal with one. But I can't think of, off the top of my head, anywhere to empty a cassette toilet in Leeds between Leeds Dock and Aperley Bridge. I assume there's an elsan point at Aperley Bridge marina and I'm pretty sure there's a pump out near Leeds dock but certainly between those two points I'm unaware of anything else. And I have absolutely no desire to wander up and down the towpath with a poo filled cassette either. So I'll be sticking with my composting toilet for the foreseeable future!

So where exactly does the compost eventually go? It takes about a year to compost, can you advise how much waste you carry on the boat at any one time?

Edited by LadyG
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I agree with everyone's concerns, but the fact is that the C&RT accept that the product of composting loos is not composted and for that very reason they insist that it is double bagged and placed in their canalside bins.

 

They will have considered the associated issues before putting this instruction into print, one would assume......

 

Dessication, if not composting, is easy to achieve with the addition of a tiny computer fan venting any moisture and smell to the outside, and since what is deposited is 90% water, the bucket lasts for much longer than the average pump-out tank and takes up far less space. My black tank occupies 800 litres of what could be valuable storage space and my loo bucket only 20 litres, but the latter lasts much longer, doesn't smell and is easy and free to empty in whatever state of dessication/composting and with the blessing of the C&RT.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

You don't put your rubbish into the C&RT bins in a plastic bag then; messy! 

One additional plastic toilet bag even two or three months inside the plastic bag that you anyway dump every few days is hardly a major issue.

 

Why not use a proper toilet indeed? Because:

 

They can be very expensive to buy, install and maintain.

Their production consumes valuable resources and energy - ceramic bowl, electric motors, plastic tank etc.

They will eventually become unpleasantly smelly.

They unnecessarily waste the world's most valuable resource, drinking water. 

Pump outs are expensive and not always available, especially in the winter.

Cassette toilets are very heavy to lug any distance and very unpleasant to empty; a relentlessly frequent process.

The need to store hundreds of litres of human slurry on board.

Blockages and jams at the most inconvenient times.

 

 

Even I find shitting in to a black poo bag to be a repulsive thought. I had to do it for about 36 hours! I used kitty litter.

The Excellence cost about £113. the sack trolley "£12.50

 

I use all possible aids to make it easier to cope with.

Edited by LadyG
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50 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Back in the 70s went on a holiday boat and the toilet was a bucket with a seat and lid.  Must have cost all of £10.  Looks like we have gone full circle, only now it’s a posh wooden bucket that costs £1k.  Progress?

I still have one in the loft, maybe I should put it on fleebay

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Composting toilets are not repulsive, or shouldn't be. The bucket is black, it is inside a wooden box that is held at a negative pressure to eliminate the escape of odours and the opening is small. It is so dark inside that what you have 'done' is barely visible, unless you are using a torch...... you're not are you?

 

Composting toilets are very widely used amongst 'glampers' who pay heavily for the privilege of not being able to flush.

 

We have had both family and friends aboard and all have been pleasantly surprised by how pleasant our 'bucket'  as you put it, is.

 

Our composting/dessicating toilet is odourless, unlike the Tecma Silence macerating loo that it superceded. 

 

Try it, with the blessing of the C&RT.

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10 hours ago, dmr said:

As the wonderful EEC is going to force us to use white diesel the fuel boats will find it hard to survive as they can't compete with the prices of supermarket petrol stations. They could be repurposed to travel round the canals collecting bags of shit from boaters and then dropping it off on farmers fields. I intend to patent this idea but I suspect some historian will tell me that its all been done before :).

 

...............Dave

It has on a much larger scale https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/09/recycling-animal-and-human-dung-is-the-key-to-sustainable-farming.html

 

 

Manure transport in china by canal  boat

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10 hours ago, tree monkey said:

I would be Interested to read your experience,  I am not anti compost bog at all, hope it works out

 

I will report on my experience but think it's only fair to give it twelve months.

 

I was fairly open minded on the subject and only got the composting toilet because I had to have my pump out removed to accommodate an engine move.

 

It's a learning curve and if it doesn't work out I will go to a cassette. 

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I installed one last summer. A Scandinavian design called the Separett Villa. It has a little flue and a fan inside, which means any smell goes out a mushroom vent in the roof, but you can't smell it outside the boat (unless you stick your nose right by the vent). 

 

If I'm going to be away from the boat for a while I put a lid on the bucket and turn the fan off to save battery. 

 

Coming back and taking the lid off does require holding your nose, but the smell doesn't come out of the bathroom and has completely gone on a couple of minutes. 

 

I would love to have a macerating pump out with a large holding tank, but I don't have the money to put one in (the boat never had a pump out). 

 

But I'm very happy with my dessicator. Very happy indeed. Zero smell, of either waste or the chemical smell of cassettes. 30 litre urine tank that gets emptied every 3 months or so, into an Elsan (it would be fine to tip it over the roots of a tree a few metres from any water course, but I think it would get on my shoes!) 

 

I have to empty the solids compartment about once a month only. 

 

The solid waste gets double bagged in nappy bags and goes in the Biffa bins. I'm not madly keen on that, but CRT is OK with it, and I have also been noticing a few local news stories from different parts of the country where local councils have stopped collecting human waste and are now saying put it in the bin, double bagged (admittedly, to residents' horror).

 

I suspect these changes may reflect a change in how waste is handled in general? I assume that, even more than CRT, councils cannot introduce policies which would endanger their workers. So I'm thinking these changes must reflect a change at the processing plants. But it is an assumption, of course. I don't know. 

 

I'm not a huge fan of what I do, but I know it's allowed and that others do it. So I don't worry overly.

 

I'm not really convinced, having worked in a nursery for years, that dirty nappies are significantly less disgusting. They can get quite full...! In fact, since they often go in "naked" (just wrapped up in themselves), they may be worse. 

 

I love my toilet, though. So easy to use and maintain, so infrequent to empty, no bad smells in the boat, no harsh chemicals, no water waste. 

 

I can see the merits in all toilet types (except a bucket with no lid just sat on the floor!) 

 

I sometimes wonder if those who seem so against dessicating toilets are just jealous and in denial about it! ;)

 

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, captain flint said:

I installed one last summer. A Scandinavian design called the Separett Villa. It has a little flue and a fan inside, which means any smell goes out a mushroom vent in the roof, but you can't smell it outside the boat (unless you stick your nose right by the vent). 

 

If I'm going to be away from the boat for a while I put a lid on the bucket and turn the fan off to save battery. 

 

Coming back and taking the lid off does require holding your nose, but the smell doesn't come out of the bathroom and has completely gone on a couple of minutes. 

 

I would love to have a macerating pump out with a large holding tank, but I don't have the money to put one in (the boat never had a pump out). 

 

But I'm very happy with my dessicator. Very happy indeed. Zero smell, of either waste or the chemical smell of cassettes. 30 litre urine tank that gets emptied every 3 months or so, into an Elsan (it would be fine to tip it over the roots of a tree a few metres from any water course, but I think it would get on my shoes!) 

 

I have to empty the solids compartment about once a month only. 

 

The solid waste gets double bagged in nappy bags and goes in the Biffa bins. I'm not madly keen on that, but CRT is OK with it, and I have also been noticing a few local news stories from different parts of the country where local councils have stopped collecting human waste and are now saying put it in the bin, double bagged (admittedly, to residents' horror).

 

I suspect these changes may reflect a change in how waste is handled in general? I assume that, even more than CRT, councils cannot introduce policies which would endanger their workers. So I'm thinking these changes must reflect a change at the processing plants. But it is an assumption, of course. I don't know. 

 

I'm not a huge fan of what I do, but I know it's allowed and that others do it. So I don't worry overly.

 

I'm not really convinced, having worked in a nursery for years, that dirty nappies are significantly less disgusting. They can get quite full...! In fact, since they often go in "naked" (just wrapped up in themselves), they may be worse. 

 

I love my toilet, though. So easy to use and maintain, so infrequent to empty, no bad smells in the boat, no harsh chemicals, no water waste. 

 

I can see the merits in all toilet types (except a bucket with no lid just sat on the floor!) 

 

I sometimes wonder if those who seem so against dessicating toilets are just jealous and in denial about it! ;)

 

 

 

 

30lts in 3 months, I produce 2.5 lts per day. I thought they were not supposed to smell at all. I also notice you use the word Desiccating and not Composting, which is what I think most of these posers are saying. The do not produce compost but dried crap. 

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3 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

30lts in 3 months, I produce 2.5 lts per day. I thought they were not supposed to smell at all. I also notice you use the word Desiccating and not Composting, which is what I think most of these posers are saying. The do not produce compost but dried crap. 

I tend to wee in pubs and bushes a lot! 

 

It would not smell at all if I used it exactly as intended - ie never turn the fan off. As it is, the bathroom (only) smells for 2 mins (only) every time I return to the boat having been away overnight (I leave it on no problem if I'm just popping out for a bit or even all day, it's just a little computer fan so the draw is very small). 

 

Dessicating /composting, let's not get caught up in semantics. As far as I know (not really that far) a true composting toilet starts the process in the actual toilet, a dessicating composting toilet doesn't actually get it all that dry but keeps the wee separate, so a lot dryer than one of the older kind of composting toilet, and it's the dryish quality of the solid waste mixed with sawdust that helps keep the smell down, I believe. To be honest I am not even sure which word is right to use, but I do know that the dryISH solid waste is suitable for composting. It's just that not that much in the way of compostual breakdown goes on in the actual toilet. And no, I don't think "compostual" is a real word, either. 

6 hours ago, BruceinSanity said:

Isn’t it a bit difficult to use up there?

Not if you're an excellent shot

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Just now, captain flint said:

Dessicating /composting, let's not get caught up in semantics.

Let's get caught up in the fact that they are completely different processes instead. Dessication is extreme drying. Composting is a process of microbial decay.

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2 hours ago, AndrewIC said:

Let's get caught up in the fact that they are completely different processes instead. Dessication is extreme drying. Composting is a process of microbial decay.

I know what the words mean in normal usage, I'm less clear how they are used as eco toilet jargon. The two may not be the same. 

 

But if I had to define my toilet by the options A and B you describe, it is definitely a composter. There are microbes and it is damp. 

 

Hope that helps

Edited by captain flint
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